The US military on Thursday dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat, targeting an Islamic State complex in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said.

File image dated March 11, 2003 courtesy teh US Air Force shows the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb prototype moments before impact in an undisclosed location. The detonation created a mushroom cloud that could be seen from up to 20 miles away.(AFP Photo)

The United States dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves used by Islamic State militants.

The use of the bomb comes as the US involvement in Afghanistan heads into its 16th year in the fall, and days after a US Special Forces operator was killed in the same region.

Here’s what we know:

• The GBU-43 is a massive ordinance air blast (MOAB), dubbed the “mother of all bombs”. It was dropped out of a C-130 aircraft in Afghanistan for the first time on Thursday